Review: In ‘Narcos’ Season 2, Pablo Escobar’s Time Is Running Out

The least interesting man in the world — stay with me; that’s actually a compliment — is back. Yes, it’s time for more “Narcos,” with Wagner Moura again portraying Pablo Escobar as the doughiest, least expressive kingpin you’ll ever meet — he’s the visual opposite of the old Dos Equis pitchman, and he’s peddling something far more potent. (“Saturday Night Live” should order up a parody that ends with Escobar at a cocaine-covered table urging, “Stay jacked, my friends.”)

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Wagner Moura, right, in Season 2 of “Narcos.”CreditJuan Pablo Gutierrez/Netflix

Just as in the first season, however, Mr. Moura’s wonderfully blank Escobar commands Season 2 of “Narcos.” Seldom has an actor done so much by doing what appears to be so little.

“Narcos” was among TV’s high points last summer, an effort to reach an international audience that seems to have paid off for Netflix. The series tells a version of the story of Escobar that is fictionalized for dramatic purposes but grounded in actual events, and the first season ended with his 1992 escape from La Catedral, the not-very-prisonlike prison made especially for him by the Colombian government. The second season, all 10 episodes of which become available on Friday, picks up where the first left off, with Escobar trying to keep his drug empire together while in hiding, as Colombia’s president, César Gaviria Trujillo (Raúl Méndez), vows to hunt him down.

Season 1 covered roughly 15 years, tracing the rise of Escobar and cocaine throughout the 1980s. Season 2 is more claustrophobic, and, since we know Escobar was killed by the Colombian authorities in December 1993, has far less time to work with.

And so it takes us ever deeper into the byzantine worlds of narco-crime and South American politics. Escobar has more than just law enforcement to worry about. Rival drug dealers are trying to capitalize on his organization’s weakened state, and groups with political rather than criminal agendas are seeing the manhunt as an opportunity to advance their causes.

That means Season 2 requires more attentive viewing than Season 1 did — there are more players, alliances and animosities to track — but it also gives the writers characters other than Escobar to develop. A particularly well-conceived arc in the early episodes involves a cabby (Leynar Gomez) who agrees to drive Escobar around Medellín (he hides in the trunk) and the young woman, Maritza (Martina García), he persuades to be his decoy passenger. Soon both are in far deeper than they ever imagined.

The Maritza story line is representative of one thing Season 2 has that Season 1 didn’t: significant roles for women. There is Judy Moncada (Cristina Umaña), one of those rival drug dealers, who is bent on avenging some particularly brutal deaths Escobar doled out. There is Claudia Messina (Florencia Lozano), who is sent from the United States to take over the Drug Enforcement Administration’s somewhat anemic efforts to assist in the manhunt. And Escobar’s wife, Tata (Paulina Gaitán), becomes more assertive about securing her family’s safety.

The detailed focus also emphasizes the biggest flaw of the series, which is its continued effort to force an American lens onto the story. As in Season 1, the tale is related by an American drug-enforcement agent, Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook). Yes, his occasional narration helps keep the plots and players straight, but Murphy and his sidekick, Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal), are often mere observers at the world’s most violent circus.

The calculus seems to be that the series won’t draw an audience in the United States unless it fosters the myth that no problem can be solved without American brainpower. Sure, the real-life Mr. Murphy and Mr. Peña played roles in the manhunt, but the Americans who really ought to receive more of this show’s attention are the ones who fostered the rise of Escobar and other drug lords by buying their products.

In any case, Mr. Moura is inscrutably brilliant at the center of it all. Normally, an actor stands out by creating a character who is constantly revealing things, whether with his eyes, his expression or his words. Mr. Moura excels by doing the opposite. The difference between Escobar’s coldhearted stare and the loving gaze he aims at his family is almost imperceptible.

Mr. Moura’s Escobar is so tightly controlled that you never know, when he walks into a room, whether he’s going to kill someone or shower that person with praise and money. More important, the other characters never know either.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Harvest Season in the Cocaine Kingdom. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe